


Holding Still

by Livia_LeRynn



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Mid-Canon, Missing Scene, One Shot, Self-Harm, Sharing a Bed, Stream of Consciousness, mention of past self-harm, mid-film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 00:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6543850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livia_LeRynn/pseuds/Livia_LeRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the night she feels most lost, Furiosa finds a cure for her insomnia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding Still

Furiosa is more than happy to make use of the borrowed blanket. Camp is quiet now, the fire burnt down to embers, and every story of the old days has dissipated into the crisp night air. She hangs her lantern and her prosthetic on their designated hooks on the side of the War Rig and rolls herself underneath, close to the still warm engine.

“Goodnight, Old Girl,” she whispers as she curls herself on her trusty swag.

She wraps the dark, blue warmth around her body. If she holds still enough, maybe she can disappear into the night. She never has been any good at holding still.

When she closes her eyes she feels the rumble of the road beneath her. This is what her body knows: the rhythm of uneven surfaces, the undulations of dunes, the hum of ancient gibber, the bounce of rocky hardpan, the staccato of turned-up stones. She would normally sleep better on nights like these. Nights after days quiet days of counting and planning she would find herself surrounded by nightmares. She could feel them stalking her in the stillness. Every time she started to drift off to sleep, they would lunge at her, and she would jolt herself awake to keep them at bay. They were still there when the road sang in her bones - she just wasn't alone with them.

But tonight she doesn't find sleep any easier. Adrenaline still rages within her, and the dark figures in her blind spot are real this time. She knows she needs it though: water, food, shelter, sleep – the inputs for optimal performance. Her sleep tank is empty; she is running on fumes.

She begins her nightly ritual even though she had planned on not needing anymore, “I am one of the Vuvalini…” She recites her lineage in her head, and each word stings like a whip crack against her body, “…one of the last…” K.T. had called the Vuvalini an experiment once, just a handful of fools trying to build something out of a mound of sand and a little bit of water. Had the experiment failed? Had their Goddess abandoned them? Had they provoked her ire? Had they grown too proud of their vines and fruit? Or was their demise simply meant as punishment for her own pride in thinking she could come home? Which is worse, the dreamers in the desert or the fool hoping she still has her place among them?

Fool…her thoughts turn to the stranger. Strange is right… She has to admit they never would have made it this far without his help, and she hasn't the slightest idea why he gave it. What does he want? Everyone wants something. She knew what she wanted, and so she’d offered to to him, as much as she had any right to give it: home – not the physical place but the acceptance and understanding that came with being seen.

“I'll make my own way.”

It was hardly surprising, no more so than a bruise or sore muscle she’d forgotten she had coming. She stretches her hips preemptively in anticipation of the next day. What all does she have coming? Bruises on her shoulders, marks on her neck, tender bumps on her face…adding to her collection. Bruise on top of bruise, scar on top of scar, more than a few of which were her own doing, her story etched in her flesh – 7000 little tally marks carved into her legs. Each point of pain served to focus her on what was right, what was real. Somewhere along the line she has forgotten what it is like to not hurt. That would be the only surprise.

He's right: hope is a mistake. If you can control it, control it. If you can fix it, fix it. If you can salvage it for scrap, salvage away. Otherwise, you're better off making a clean break. There are some things that couldn't be fix, some people who are lost causes. So here she is, staring up at the underside of her Rig, too broken to sleep, trapped between hope and debt. She has never been never any good at debt either.

She pulls her blanket closer and tries to find the smell of home in it. She finds the same smells as always: smoke, guzz, oils, no black, earthy soil or lush green, but there was humanity - sweat, breath, skin oils. It reminds her of her branch scarf, which despite everything the road threw at it, still manages to smell organic. The black, slubby cloth holds her in the space between its threads; it wears her while she wears it.

She rolls herself out, taking her blanket with her. She drapes it over her shoulder as she climbed into the cab. Lighting the lantern would be more trouble than it is worth, so she leaves it hanging. She knows the darkness well, and she doesn't want to disturb her precious cargo. Their bodies have twisted together, their limbs crossing and draping over each other, connecting like wires. She lets her gaze roll over their faces - smooth, young, blissfully lost in dreams of long lost places, places that could never live up to those dreams anyway.

She pulls her scarves, her primary and her spare from their designated spots. She drapes them each over her neck. She takes a long breath through each in turn, making sure to mentally mark which was which. Technically the spare was intended for her successor, just in case, so her boys wouldn't find themselves leaderless in the heat of a battle going badly. Her scarf has held her every time she lost one on the road and had to pretend to be pleased.

Those days are behind her. Now she can only hope more of her boys were shuffling home dejectedly than not. Hope – there's that damn word again.

There he is, his shape dark against the starts with a dimly lit lantern at his feet. Furiosa knew he would still be awake even though dawn can't be more than a few hours away. His slouched form bristles at her approach then eases once he recognises her.

His relaxation is more than enough of a greeting for her. She holds out her primary scarf to him. “I would like for you to have this.” She presses it into his hand. “I have a spare,” she adds before he can protest.

He runs his thumb slowly over the material. The way he caresses each slub remindes her of how one of the women in her clan used to touch a strand of wooden beads while mumbling to herself. That woman is gone now; Furiosa curses herself for not being able to remember the woman’s name.

“Thank you,” the stranger says as he loops the scarf around his own neck.

“It’s cold out here. You’re welcome to sleep inside…or underneath with me.”

She is sure the mothers have already offered him a tent, but it seems wrong not to offer, to use such a large sleeping space just for herself. She knows not everyone prefers it; some like the interior, some like the open, most prefer at least higher clearance, but to her the extra darkness and warmth feel safe. She has only ever invited certain people to sleep at the far end, those she knew wouldn't alter its atmosphere. No one has ever taken her up on the offer.

The stranger is no exception. “Nice out here,” he says, still staring into the night.

She crouches beside him so she can borrow his vantage, try to see what he sees. Stars - the same stars from her childhood. They seem clearer now than she remembers, maybe fewer clouds, less pollution, maybe just the haze of the past. She vaguely remembers being told that the stars are so far away that their light takes thousands upon thousands of days to travel to her eyes. Any star she sees now could already be gone, snuffed out by the blackness of space, and she is just seeing the last of its light on a one way trip across the universe. Fucking stars. Fucking stars indeed.

“You know the problem with voids?” She doesn't wait for a response she knows will never come. “If you stare to long, they stare back.”

“Mm-hmm.” He agrees as though the observation were obvious.

She dips her nose into the scarf around her own neck. It would take a few more wearings for it to smell right. It wouldn't be the same, but it would be a new kind of right, all open desert and women’s bodies. She'll have to get used to that all over again.

"Think he’ll ever stop?” the man asks.

“No, not if he can help it.” She turns to look at the familiar stranger beside her. There is a softness about his face in the low light as he speaks.

“Just keep running then? Rest of your life?”

“Isn't that what you do?”

Silence sits between them – not the awkward kind, the full, comfortable kind like a blanket around careful words carefully chosen.

Strangely, he is the first to break it. “You don't wanna be like me.”

“What if I already am?”

No answer – none wanted or needed- instead, more easy silence, the silence of thighs lightly touching, of heavy eyelids, shallow breaths. Even the wind is quiet, the land still. She means to get up now, but it just isn't happening. _Inertia-_ that was the word for why things stay the same, the moving keep moving, the resting keep resting... for now, but not forever...there is another word... _Entropy_...entropy always wins. She has vague memories of some other bits about closed systems and outside forces - gravity, friction, all the fancy words for things that a person knows without really knowing why or how. An errant shot will fly until it slows down and falls. A stopped car needs guzzo to make it go. You can polish and shockwash, but the rust always keeps coming. You could shockwash until the day you die, but with no one left to shockwash, the rust will still win.

Her shoulders and those of her stranger meet, gradually caving in on each other; the touch comes slowly, subtly so neither try to withdraw from it. Instead, they roll into it, as if they've left their parking brakes disengaged on a hillside. She does try to open her blanket for him, but he bats it away. Some people just prefer the open air. Then everything is still. 

***

She must have fallen sleep at some point. The first few rays of light spread over the salt to wake her. Open sky above her; strange, extra limb lazily weighing on her chest - she starts to pull away in shock and confusion. But then, memories of the night come back, and she settles back into the warmth of the man foolish enough to stay beside her.

The camp is still quiet. There is time, time to plan supply distribution, time to plan riding formations, time for useful things that don't require movement. She never has been any good at holding still.

**Author's Note:**

> A "swag" is a bedroll. 
> 
> I originally intended "Old Girl," to be the War Rig, but it work for the prosthetic too if you want to take it that way. 
> 
> "Gibber" is the Australian term for "desert pavement," which is a desert surface made of tightly compacted gravel. 
> 
> I'm not a physicist; Furiosa isn't either. All uses of physics terms are intended to be poetic, not literal.
> 
> "Shockwash" is an invented War Boy term for an electrolysis rust removal treatment.


End file.
